RR Crossings 101 - How do the LIGHTS and GATES work? - AND MORE! [10 Levels] 

Hyce, this was a great video to watch! I'm so glad you finally made this one. It was definitely fun looking at the crossings and trying to identify them from my own work. Having worked on a couple grade crossings from the Civil side--yes, there are some new crossings out there--let me add a couple other considerations. --Crossings through intersections should be avoided if possible; consider making two T-intersections instead of a single 4-way. Crossings through traffic circles are stupid and should be avoided at all costs. And yet a few do exist... --Skewed crossings should also be avoided; the road should intersect the tracks as close to 90 degrees as possible, and ideally on a tangent for both. This reduces crossing length and improves sight lines for drivers. --To avoid having trucks bottom out on the crossing (15:16), there's a recommended minimum vertical curvature for the approaches, and a distance from the crossing they have to be. I can't remember the exact values off the top of my head. Steeper or closer than that will trigger the low-clearance sign shown. --If the track is in a horizontal curve, also remember to account for superelevation when designing the road profile. --With the tracks, It's generally a good idea to avoid vertical curves in the crossing, since the crown of the road (cross-slope) will need to match the grade of the track. For the road this becomes more important if there are multiple tracks. --Don't forget to provide access to the signal bungalow for maintenance crews! --While trains always have right of way when they enter crossings, on some low-traffic sidings trains may be required to stop and ensure the crossing activates before proceeding. These crossings will have a "Stop" sign on the approach. One other interesting subject is the crossing surface itself. Most crossings use precast concrete panels, made by a number of manufacturers. The next most common surface is probably just asphalt pavement (or gravel on gravel roads) up to the rails, with a flangeway left open. On some rural crossings I've seen wood panels, but they tend to fall apart under heavy use. I've also heard of full-rubber panels in some cases, but I've also heard they're very maintenance intensive. There's also the subject of "who owns the crossing?" Can vary by jurisdiction, but IIRC the railroad is generally responsible for maintenance up to 5'-6' from track centerline, conveniently about the same width as a standard panel. The local road jurisdiction is responsible for the approaches beyond that. Again, glad to see this video come out. Excited to see what else you come up with for 101 or 201 deep dives!

I could watch “deep dives” into just about any subject with only one stipulation - the presenter has to actually know what they’re talking about. I have never really been infatuated with trains until RU-vid decided I should watch Hyce. And hereI am, all excited about learning about RR X-ings. Stop being so interesting, HYCE, I got stuff to do! 😂👍🏼

There's one crossing that I know of which is set up in a particularly amusing way. It's an NS branch line off the Amtrak keystone corridor. First grade crossing after it branches off. Just before the crossing there is an industry, with the switch converging towards the crossing. So, to service the industry, the train would stop before the crossing - but close enough that the crossing had activated - cut off a bunch of cars, pull forward onto the crossing - line the switch, shove back into the industry, do whatever they need to do in there, and reverse the process to get back out. The crossing is, apparently, set up so that if there is a train *anywhere* between it and that siding, it's activated, no matter whether it's moving or not. In addition, if the switch is lined into the siding, it is active 100% of the time. The industry actually has a bunch of tracks and uses rail relatively extensively, so there's usually a few movements involved - so it might take half an hour, 45 minutes to do the whole evolution, with the road blocked the whole time. The road it's on is an industrial road between the highway and a few industries with heavy truck traffic. It does exit on the other side as well *but* between those industries and the other exit is the underpass under the Amtrak mainline. The underpass is very old, a narrow single lane, low clearance, and floods at the slightest sign of rain. You can't fit a truck through there. If it's raining or snowing, you can't get a *CAR* through there. This causes no end of chaos.

To Level 10: In Germany we often have Radar installed in crossings, to Signal the Dispatcher that the crossing is clear or to Signal the engineer, that he has to stop infront of the next crossing. Crossings, exept for rural ones, allways give Feedback to either the Dispatcher, the engineer via signals or block blocksections/signals from getting green

I love these educational videos, and I'll throw out something regarding crossings from the road user side that most people likely aren't aware of. Certain vehicles (I.e. School buses and hazmat transporters) are required to stop at railroad crossings even if there is no train coming and no signal activation. Those drivers must check that the track is clear before proceeding. I pull a chemical tanker, and I personally think this is an outdated law that should be removed. For one, depending on geometry, track speed, and ambient noise, it's not always possible to ensure the way is clear by sight or sound of a distant train horn. Second, another part of that law is you are not allowed to shift gears while in the process of crossing. If I were to follow the law 100% with a loaded trailer and over 46,000 lbs of liquid trying to act like an anchor when starting off, I would be limited to crossing the track at about 6-8 mph due to the no shifting rule. It's nerve racking at some of these crossings because it doesn't leave much time to spare if a train activates the signals after I'm already committed to the crossing. And while I'm stopped, I'm also a sitting duck for an unattentive driver to rear end me. Which brings me to my favorite crossing sign, which you didn't mention: The EXEMPT sign. That sign means vehicles that normally have to stop before crossing are allowed to cross without stopping. This is usually because the track sees little use or track speeds are slow enough that there's plenty of reaction time. Another exception is if it's a switching track or similar for an industrial plant that it serves.

One time I was switching out an industry that was next to a grade crossing when some guy in a semi truck ran straight through the arm, but all it did was rotate the arm 90 degrees so that it was over the tracks. When we pulled out of the industry going back to the main, that crossing arm went down in front of us and my engineer said " well I guess this means we have to stop for them now" good thing those move easy, so it wasn't hard to fix on my own, but it was a hilarious sight to behold with all the traffic staring us down awkwardly.

A perfect example of why all of this consideration is important, especially level 9 with regards to how the crossing interacts with a nearby intersection, is the 1995 Fox River Grove Train-Bus collision, which took place in Fox River Grove, a Suburb of Chicago, Illinois. In Short? A school bus with 35 kids and their driver got wreaked by a Metra inbound express train, with 7 children dying as a result, because a small portion of the bus was hanging over the rail (yes, the RAIL, not just the crossing envelope) while stopped at a red light intersection. The bus driver does have some of the blame, as she wasn't as aware of the bus as she should have been (somewhat forgivable, as she was a substitute driver who was primarily a desk worker) and got distracted by the kids shouting at her (again, somewhat forgivable as she wasn't a seasoned bus driver), but the vast majority of the blame rests with IDOT and the parties that designed the intersection. Not only was the lead up to the intersection after the crossing way too short (they clearly didn't think about road vehicles longer than a typical car when designing the thing), but the cycle to a green light when a train was approaching would have left the Driver only about 6 seconds (yes, ONLY 6 seconds maximum) to get her bus moving and clear of the train crossing after the light turned green. Plainly Difficult recently made a rather good video on the tragedy recently if anyone wants more information about it, but needless to say it's a perfect example of why getting this stuff right the first time is extremely important.

Great Video, I was told by my prof, the main issue at road-rail interactions is the completely different way those means of transport operate. Road traffic is not pre-planned, but able to react, rail traffic is planned, but can't react, where these two philosophies meet there is conflict. In Germany (much smaller, more densely populated country, I know) it is not possible to built new level crossings (exceptions are theoretically possible, but are rarely given), because they make up for the vast majority of injuries and deaths related to rail traffic.

Theres a grade crossing that I frequent as part of my job and someone goofed up as when they repaved the roads leading up to it, they didn't redo the RR shapes that are painted on the pavement, so someone (presumably from a nearby industry as the track is an industry lead) just spray painted an outline of the RR symbol and the stop line right where it should be... there was a sad face also spray painted. I'll nab a picture next time I can

I was once stopped at a crossing with a freight train crawling through very slowly, coming to stop with the tail end just clear of the crossing. The gates start to go up, then stop and come back down again. Fortunately no one got so impatient as to drive around, because the tail end of that train cam back through the crossing at a good clip, 10+ MPH. Quite a surprise. Don't know what the engineer was up to, but he must have stopped the train using the independent, compressed the train hard, and then it ... uncompressed, vigorously. Moral of the story: even on single track crossing, don't assume it's safe the moment the tail of the train passes.

@hyce there was a crossing in Alabama with multiple bells, from what i know they installed so many because people kept winning cases that they couldn't hear the bells so the railroad did a little malicious compliance and installed so many crossing bells that you could hear them even over loud music suddenly all the court cases started going in the railroads favor.

I've noticed those blue street signs in place of green signs in cities that feature a HEAVY amount of trees, and the blue certainly stands out against green foliage a lot better.

My grandfather was a civil engineer and worked fairly high in a couple different states/cities DoT. He told me once that they couldn't consider the expense of lights and armguards at a crossing until a minimum of three deaths occurred at it.

50:20 I can also confirm this, one night at Polar I was running the crossing and I didn't know it at the time but my radio wasn't working, meaning I didn't hear the call for the train to come down the hill. Considering the train comes down the hill in "stealth mode" for dramatic effect (no whistle for the movement, no bell, and downhill so minimal/no throttle), myself and the other volunteer in the shack with me had no clue it was coming until of all things we heard the dynamo getting louder and fell out of the shack to hit the gates lol

This likely varies between states But on the sumpter Valley we were looking at installing lights to a crossing instead of only a crossbuck. We had access to a wig wag and we’re going to install that except Oregon department of transportation said no. They would not allow us to put a wig wag on a roadway. So while it likely changes between states, if you are installing a new crossing on a public road, government authorities might not accept wig wags as it isn’t two flashing lights

Fun fact, the premtive warning sign used by intenational convention is still a steam loco, though they are proposing changing it.

In Norway the railroad gates are really flimsy and you can see they really flex, but that is for a good reason. If you end up trapped between them, there is a sign written on the gates that clearly lists the correct action to take if you get caught between them, of course translated. "If you are in danger, run the gate over" or basically instructing you to ram the gate as it will break easily if force is applied from the inside of the gate.

I found this really interesting. I worked for several years training cdl school bus drivers so there was a lot of special requirements and precautions taken at rail crossings. Interesting to think about the design that goes into them. I remember a few particularly gnarly crossings that I had to coach drivers on in our area.

I cross a crossing at an intersection everyday and never knew why the traffic light across the tracks always changed after the light before the tracks. Thanks for the in depth look at crossings, answering some questions and showing some things I would never have thought about before.

You should take a look at the Florida DOT dynamic envelope marking test. They implemented cross hatch markings at all state road grade crossings within about a year. Also at 1:11:00-ish, the far signal is a programmable signal head that can be set to only be visible in a certain distance range. This way the people stopped at the near side red traffic signal may not even be able to see the far side green signal. Also it would be good to talk about “Exempt” signs in your next grade crossing video.

My state (VIC Australia) has been removing a lot of level crossings and rebuilding platforms higher to reduce holdups of traffic, and I imagine to get the few road accidents with level crossings closer to zero. Its interesting how everything interplays -- money, population, traffic, etc -- and how that affects choice of crossing and if it is a level crossing or whatever.

I like the new editing style for this video with the sounds and fly-in transitions. Nice job, Nick! We appreciate you and what you do just as much as Hyce!

This reminds me of my childhood in the 1970's and 1980's. I grew up along the Santa Fe El Paso sub..l saw crossings go from crossbucks to flashing lights only to gates as the outskirts of the town grew up along the line. We had one of the schools where we got regular visits from the railroad police to tell us not to play on the tracks, because so many of us were close to the tracks. I remember seeing the aftermath of a car that got hit by a train one day at a crossbuck only crossing. It very quickly gained gates and lights after that, as I found out later that there was a fatality associated with that one 😢

My “favorite” train crossings were in rural ex-soviet Ukraine. They were manned, manual, and best I could determine, scheduled. Because the man would come out and lower the gates and then …. 20 min later ….the train would cross. I’m guessing they didn’t often encounter train traffic that was ahead of schedule.

Thanks for not leaving grade crossing 101 out ive been wanting something like this for a while.

Well, when I was little I was convinced the big metal boxes were where a guy with a crank to lower the gate, a guy with two buttons to make lights flash, and a guy with a pot and metal spoon waited for hours until a train showed up. In all seriousness, this is a great look at grade crossings. Who knew they were so interesting!

here in sweden i've only ever seen standardized crossings with full-on barriers and warning lights, there are some completely unprotected crossings for pedestrians only at train stations on the small branch lines but otherwise we've really tried to just grade-separate things completely whenever possible, and this work is indeed still going on.

The public still interacts with railroads quite regularly in the Northeast. I’m just one of many people here in the DC area who gets around using only Metro, Amtrak, and occasionally commuter rail. Since I’m car-free, the railroad crossing is practically the only part I don’t interact with!

Some of the SMART stations (the Sonoma-Marin system in California) have cute little "miniature" arms that come down to block the sidewalk -- but because pedestrians can be caught on the trackway, in the wide space between the arms, they also have to install little hand-operated "escape" gates for the pedestrians to get out past the gates.

Hyce, I am working on grade crossing improvements with engineering consultants, and this video has helped me understand it so much more. Wonderful job, and thank you!

Wow, now I know why my town added concrete medians to the three streets where they just made our first quiet zone. The railroad (UP) added crossbucks on the other side of the crossings (with lights), but there's no gates on the back side

I watched part of this video and went to bed before a long day at the RR. Woke up the next morning to find out lightning had struck the crossing right outside our main station. It knocked out the XR relay and had caused the crossing gates to be stuck down

Yeah distant signal is a great channel! I actually found you after watching his videos and you showed up in the recommendations. He’s inspired my wife, who is a big rail fan to do some similar style videos of where we are moving too. Though sadly, Saginaw has seen better railroad traffic in the past as opposed to the present… If you want to see a really depressing railroad museum, look up the Saginaw Railroad Museum.

I have a drinking game when watching Hyce videos. Every time he says “that” you take a drink.

I always knew there was a lot involved with railroad crossings but it was really nice to have it all broken down into it's very base components that shows why every crossing can be so different. Love your videos and hope to see more in the future. And one of these days I hope to meet you at the Colorado Railroad Museum. I know you're a busy guy but I hope to see you someday. Again great video as always.

After seeing this video, I now have a much better understanding of exactly what "Tommy played piano like a kid out in the rain. Then he lost his leg in Dallas, he was dancin' with a train." really means.

This video is perfect. I'm homebrewing an Arduino powered detection/crossing system for HO. The system uses IR emitter/phototransistor pairs under the track between the ties to detect advanced warning and island presence on both sides. This helps a lot for me understand what the actual requirements are and how the gates should act. Thanks for all your info!

Ah yes! This is related to the one time I was actually able to volunteer on a heritage railroad! I flagged crossings for the Stewartstown Railroad one day when I was in college! I wish I could have done it more often, but sadly, life did get in the way. They have a neat little operation there! Similar situation to the EBT, except standard gauge, no steam, and a much smaller-scale operation.

I live in a small town, it's the end of the line. Little 2-track granary, only see trains spring/autumn. There's a crossbuck and a yield sign, nothing else.

Danny's got the kind of voice who could narrate paint drying and it would be interesting to listen to.

When I worked for Conrail in the 80's most of the Crossings were Electrical Current operated, as you talked about in this video which is a True thing, but the Speed isn't what you said understood you can't go over everything as you would have to explain everything that goes along with everything else then. So, speed limits depend on the Load your hauling as some Trains have the standard speed limit and Yard Crews or Special Delivery loads require a different safety speed limit which change the Crossing gate speed requirement of time they start as Yard crew speed is 15mph. I think the Funniest thing I have ever watched a New Crew first day on job take-in is watching them get Scared when Lighting struck the Tracks there on as it Can happen but not a lot, thinking you're in an all-Metal machine with Steel wheels on Steel rails makes you wonder LOL. Great Video 👍👍

Thank u for explaining this. In Canby oregon there are 7 crossings, two different railroads, a switch line, and a u.p. mainline, a main highway and the entire city split by the mainline. It can become extremely difficult. Lots of sitting as they switch freight from the molalla line to the u.p. line. Or just mass confusion when the power goes out for a few days and all the crossing signals go down for a few hours across the entire town. Seen neat things, like a truck dragging an entire signal crossing behind it. Or the entire issue of a lumber train derailing with an engine ending up on its side in a guys front yard. Quite impressive things. Thats not saying all the odd things I've seen u.p.'s engines sounding, leaking, and doing.

28:00... 20 seconds, but not always really. That overlap of minimum delay combined with city/county stoplight settings brings back a lot of memories for those of us in the railfan and rail disaster communities doesn't it. But love your videos, especially the podcast types like this.

Something to also add to the MUTCD and in general traffic safety laws, if a railroad crossing crossbuck has a stop sign instead of a yield sign, you are supposed to come to a complete stop as if it is an actual intersection, regardless of a train is approaching or not. Crossbucks with stop signs are usually added at crossings with limited visibility, so stopping is necessary to see if a train is approaching. The amount of people who do not understand this is mind-boggling, and I’ve seen many a person go through them like yield signs. It’s also believed the MO Amtrak derailment several months back was caused by the semi involved not stopping at a crossbuck with a stop sign. Also, those stop signs are enforceable by police and you can be stopped and cited for not stopping at it.

What an intriguing video, interesting to understand such things as these grade crossings, given how infrequently I interact with them. Fun Fact, in NSW, after an accident in Sydney, the state transportation authority made it policy to eliminate as many at-grade level crossings on the Sydney suburban lines as possible - and they largely succeeded, with less than 10 now left in the entire city. the only place you'll find an at grade crossing now, is in the outback, where there are far fewer trains and railroad lines to interact with.

In Minnesota where I am, I work at a scrap yard that runs parallel to the mainline. Across from us is the local Amtrak station, and about 200 feet south of the station is the crossing for the mainline, as well as the crossing for our spur line. The mainline crossing has all the bells and whistles, while the crossing for our line has just the sign and the conductor of the train stands in the road with a flag before the train crosses to stop traffic. Almost every day the Amtrak stops at the station. Them gates go down and back up after the train stops, but sometimes the gates will go down, and nothing will come through. On either sides of the crossing are 2 turn outs that lean through town to the rail yard.

In Poland we had an accident several years ago when the ambulance driver stuck between the gates 😬 If it ever happens to you, do not hesitate to brake off the gate! Save your life, not wallet! Increasing number of Polish crossings is equipped with the sensors that detect broken gate and set signals to restrict the train speed to 20 km/h (12 mph).

4:45 I noticed that they are starting to add Yield signs underneath the crossbucks in more places, which makes it stand out, and also as a reminder that you are supposed to yield to the train. Sometimes they even add a stop sign where there is low visibility.

In a city vaguely near me (pretty much just close enough to drive there occasionally), there's a rail line that runs down the middle of the road in town to another line somewhere outside the main area as well as to a brewery, and it has zero lights, gates, signs, or painted lines anywhere along it. If you happen to be driving down the road when a train is about to come (which you can't see in advance at all), you just have to shift into reverse as quickly as possible and hopefully drive away from the train backwards fast enough to get to the previous intersection. And even if you happen to see the train before it hits that stretch of road, it is not at all obvious that the train would be going that way. The track is a pretty sharp curve behind a lot of bushes and trees just before reaching the road, so it looks like the train is just going to continue past the road until it is about to reach the road. When I was there on a trip with my mom (just before Covid) we encountered a train about to run down that track, and luckily were close enough to the next intersection to get out of the way of the train before we would've gotten stuck. If you're curious, this is in Utica, NY. There's also a yard/station in the middle of the city that was fun to watch from a bridge when I got lost near it once. It had a steam engine in it, with wood in its tender, but it was too dark for me to tell what the specific kind of engine was.

It is interesting to compare your systems to what we see here in Hungary, Europe. Here we don't need a separate set of flashing lights for each lane, we normally don't even use bells. But our flashing light system can a bit more complex. To make things more interesting: Our trains rarely use the horn only if they approach a crossing without working warning lights. We have at least 2 types of systems, 1st: The automatic ones controlled by the train. In this case the train really has absolute right of way. Here the signal for the road users has 3 different states. Two flashing reds... are same as everywhere. A single flashing white (placed under the 2 reds) show that the signal is working. When it is all dark, you know there is either some problem or an "abnormally slow train" and you should be extra careful. If the reds are flashing at track side you would see some other flashing signals tell the engineer that everything supposed to work and road users should see the two red flashing light. If anything would damage the lights or the gates, the system would go all dark (even trackside signals) and even dispatch / etc. would see a warning. The key is: When the lights aren't working (or aren't red for the traffic) the trackside signal stays dark, and the train should slow down significantly to have a chance to stop if there is an issue, and should use the horn... We have 2 railway companies here, MÁV is the Hungarian State Railways, and GYSEV an Austrian-Hungarian joint venture responsible for operating a few lines. Their railway crossings also have a special sign with the identifier of the crossing and a phone number to call if a road vehicle would be stuck in the crossing for any reason. While our TSB recommended the use of this system our state railway haven't implemented this. If a vehicle is stuck in a railway crossing people can use hand signals to try to stop the trains. Understanding signals can be important to help you to guess from which way you can expect a train if you want to approach it to stop it with hand signals (always keep safe distance from the track!). Luckily you can track plenty of trains with a few websites (for example: iemig.mav-trakcio.hu/ ) and applications. 2nd: The other is used as part of stations where you reserve a path (setting up all the switches, etc) for any train movement. While legally the train still has absolute right of way, in this case you can't set a path for the train without closing the gates / activating the flashing red lights for road traffic first. Some of these gates can be closed for quite long times. If they can be closed for more than 10 minutes you would see some additional sign at the road, some can be closed for like 43 minutes... In case of any malfunctions there are special rules, etc. About road side signs: We have a few of them that should be placed at specific distances from the at grade crossings. Considering that in Europe you have to take formal drivers education before you get a drivers license, our drivers have to know more about railroad crossings than an average American driver who had a good chance to learn mostly bad habbits from parents when they learned to drive.

Can't say how much I appreciate these explainer videos, as someone with a love of trains but little technical knowledge. Please keep them coming!

SEVEN! Bells go ding ding ding ding ding ding ding for real lol

Regarding signals, it’s really interesting to notice how signals have changed as I’ve grown up and now that I’m 39. Also it’s interesting to note the signals and timing in the Netherlands. There’s a live rail came and it’s interesting to see how far in advance they come on, and especially how disciplined everybody is.

So there was this crossing in my small hometown, UP main. Almost every time it rained the gates would start going hey-wire. This lasted at least 20 years and for all I know still does. Never knew about the resistance thing... The crossing and trackbed are pretty flat, even has standing water if it rains hard enough.

Super interesting, thanks! Some years ago I worked as an EMT on an ambulance. One night around 1AM, we were transporting a patient in fairly bad shape and hit a railroad crossing just as the gates came down. No train ever appeared, though, and the gates never went back up. After a minute or so it was clear to us that the signals were malfunctioning. My partner urged me to drive around the gates, but I figured I'd probably get fired for that (critical patient or not) so I called my dispatcher and told them the situation. Within a couple minutes, a police officer arrived and waved us through. Our patient made it to the hospital and I don't think the delay harmed them any, but it was a stressful few minutes for us. It's crazy, though: in 25 years of driving this was the _only_ time I can recall seeing a signal malfunction this way. What are the odds?

1:10:30 In my area level crossings next to junctions with traffic lights always stop cars before the tracks. We seem to have noticed drivers are too dumb and will park on tracks if given a chance. So the whole crossing become part of the junction where cars are not allowed to park.

The approach sign is round, and you will occasionally still see round railroad crossing signs in the wild, they are holdovers from an earlier system of traffic signage standardization which used the number of sides the sign has to convey the level of information being given, more sides indicate greater hazard, octagonal stop signs and triangular information signs are more well-known holdovers, but the railroad signs were/are round because a circle has an infinite number of sides because the train represents such a great hazard -modern cars still do quite badly against trains, you can imagine how the early cars would fair!

Regarding level 9: I've seen this in action. Bossier City, LA; I-20 and Airline Drive headed south on Airline. Had a train passing on the track directly south of the interstate intersection; southbound traffic on Airline was kept red at the near intersection the entire time the train was there, kept traffic coming off the eastbound interstate exit ramp with a green signal. Northbound Airline was obviously blocked by the train, but it probably had the preemptive green to clear traffic from that direction before the train.

Make a railroad crossing signal 102. Where you will explain about the different company’s that make the equipment. How old they are and stuff like that. Also want to mention the Route 23&38 grade crossing in DeKalb IL. You should definitely go check that out

Here in Taiwan our railway crossings are controlled by the railway signaling system. There are also buttons at level crossings we can push in case of emergencies which will warn the drivers and I think they also apply emergency braking on approaching trains? We are also moving to use axle counters instead of track circuits on new sites

I actually know of a crossing with seven bells (near the Northstar station in Elk River, MN). Interestingly, they're all General Signals e-bells, and all three of the common GS bell sounds (they've changed over time) are represented at one crossing. Seven WCH bells (as seen in the video)..? That would be deafening up close

working on the ramp at an airport. some aircraft can sneek up on you if you aren't visually checking. some newer aircraft are comparitively very quiet and i've taken a nap in the shade once only to wake up to an aircraft shutting it's engines down.

I have had that (37:37) experience with a light rail/cargo train grade crossing early in the implementation the crossing (5+ months after the light rail station became active and before the apartments were built) would activate for 30 seconds and then open again. Why? Because while the light rail station 100 feet up the track (you can see it) was the end of line for the light rail the cargo trains would continue to the industry spurs past the grade crossing. This "feature" of the crossing has since been removed (so I cannot prove it for the internet) but supposedly occurred at many grade crossings in close proximity to light rail stations. GPS cords: 33.11790951955735, -117.09141592880249 For those that wondered I am level 4 with some of 5, tons of experience with level 7 (except the intermediate one)

"...and the train has the absolute right-of-way. It's going to come through the crossing. Bar none. Everyone get out of the way." Yep, unless you got a death wish, but even then, get help. I've been in that headspace, and to say it sucks is an understatement, but you gotta take care of yourself. :) Also, speaking of lights, I remember seeing at least one crossing where their was a set of lights kicked to the direction of the rails. Why would a train need to see that? Train horns are loud. According to Google Maps I live 2km from a crossing, and can still hear the horn sound. (...and yes, I use metric.) Hyce draws an intersection with European placement of the traffic lights. o . O ?

When I was growing up, there was always a train horn around here. When I had to move back, they had stopped them from hooting. Frankly, I had gotten to the point that I didn't even hear the train horn because I grew up at this house kinda near the crossing and then I had an apartment literally next to a crossing that had the horn and all the usual bells and lights of a crossing. It only took me maybe a month to be able to sleep through all the train ruckus even at my apartment right next to the crossing but I was a lot younger then and, now that I'm getting a little old, the stupidest little thing can wake me up, although I still don't even hear the trains passing near here when I'm awake and they never wake me up when I'm asleep. In any case, there are a lot of silent crossings around here. We did have an issue with some of the crossings like last year. I was on my way to go on a hike and the crossing triggered. I don't care. I have all my camping gear on my back when I hike because I'm trying to train for longer hikes so I don't mind the train crossing giving me a rest so I stopped in the shade a bit uphill from the actually crossing. Several minutes passed and no train came. I witnessed every single one of the cars that had been waiting at the crossing back up until they could drive on the wrong side of the road the cross the crossing. Frighteningly, the first vehicle to do this was a big truck towing a boat! I waited for maybe 10 minutes in the shade and the signal eventually went back up without any train having ever crossed. When I went hiking that way the next time, they had a crew out working on the crossing bungalow and it's worked ever since then. I mean, at that crossing as a pedestrian, I could literally see for at least a mile in both directions but trains are too big for me to take my life into my hands like that and just cross, although I might have if it has lasted another 5-10 minutes, but I would have definitely run across even with my 50+ lb backpack on. It would be nice not to have any crossings, at least for cars and particularly for emergency vehicles. As someone who only owns a bike or gets places walking, it does suck to have to put in the energy to get over the big train bridge and it seems like there's always a train stopped across the crossing when I'm coming home the most tired. In the car, there's no excuse to take the risk of driving across the tracks when the signal is on because it doesn't take much more gas to go drive over the bridge but it takes a lot more for me to do that because the distance is further before I even get to the bridge and then the hill is steep to get up and over the bridge. If it wasn't so much more effort, I'd always go that way, but the way with the crossing is both shorter and has less hill to it so I'm always pretty bummed when I not only have to go over the bridge, but have to do a lot of backtracking to do so. Of course, if there were no crossings, going the easy crossing way would never have been an option so I would have just gotten used to using the bridge even though it is steep. I always go over the bridge if I borrow my mom's car or something because there's no reason not to just go that way. We also have a level 1 trauma hospital in the area so it's pretty important that the ambulances can get over that bridge because, if they are taking patients specifically to the trauma 1 hospital, those are the patients who are the worst off and they could easily die if the ambulance had to wait for even a couple of minutes for a train to pass.

I love that "look" sign, really interesting to get the engineers perspective on what I spend most of my week maintaining. I find it interesting that the US doesn't seem to have back boards on either their lights or cross bucks.

Awesome deep dive. A lot of level 9 can be summed up with 4 words Fox River Grove Illinois. Literally another 20 seconds and 7 inches would have made the life saving difference.

If a train sneaks up on you, that's how you know you've been there long enough to tune the noise out, those things are loud

Not that long ago there was a push here in Australia to have all rural and farmland level crossings to have boom gates, lights, and bells. There have been quite a few accidents on farms where there are only signs and the railway traffic is infrequent. The British system of having a flashing amber light at level crossings also, at least to me, seems like a good idea.

37:39 - Well, at least you had the appropriate song to sit at the crossing by.

Hi Mark so many thanks for this excellent tutorial. As always I’ve learned so much from your 101 series. Everything was of great interest, but of particular note was watching the relays click on and off in the CRRM bungalow. You know those relays remind me of similar ones used to control elevators before they went electronic. So fun to watch. Also your point about the future of eliminating grade crossings is well put. A topic that has gotten attention historically as well especially during the design and engineering of passenger stations in the early 20th century and all that. Finally, the seven chime crossing is a giggle for sure; maybe they should make them play a tune while everyone waits. 😂 Seriously though I never get tired of saying this to you, Professor, a job so well done and many thanks for making these classroom moments!

You know u gon learn somethin today when the prof pulls out MS paint

These in-depth videos are amazing, thank you for sharing! It's really cool to see how all this stuff works, and learn a little bit about the history of these crossings at the same time.

LA Metro light rail A and E lines have many grade crossings. It stops at signals like buses and goes super slow in Highland Park, from Pico to Washington station in downtown LA, in Long Beach, and around USC, but it operates like a train, not stopping, and uses the grade crossing gates and lights elsewhere. Around some stations there're cute little gates complete with flashing lights and bells just for pedestrians. The train blows its horn 2 longs 1 short 1 long in South LA (must be super annoying with 200 trains a day) but not in Highland Park or further east or in Long Beach or Westside (quiet zone). There have been lots of grade crossing crashes when trains hit cars or pedestrians in South LA and Vernon seems to be the worst offender. Blows my mind why some drivers do illegal turns or drive around the gate, since it's more serious than the average red light.

we have a grade crossing in my town that because of a diamond, has way too long warning time, because often enough they stop short of the grade crossing. they have an automatic cancel circuit, although it seem to detect any movement so the train has to come to a complete stop to trip it.

Interesting 101 video as always, covering a lot of considerations even if things are done quite differently here in Switzerland (much more standardized, almost always entry/exit gates also covering pedestrian ways, longer warning times, no train horns, and usually only one flashing light per side on all the examples I can think of. And fewer road signs in general :P). I think I also get what's going on at Zürich Binz station now, which is right between two grade crossings. The first one activates when the train is coming, of course, but from memory the second one also starts before the train has even reached the station - maximum warning time be damned xD But since the signals don't really know when the train will leave, it's probably hard to improve that, unless you coordinate with dispatch or something. (That line, the "Üetlibergbahn", is an interesting line anyway, quite steep and has some weird offset-catenary-dual-voltage stuff going on)

21:47 Yes, I indeed love my ding ding devices at my crossings

Good work on the video, well put together and very informative. Love to see more people educating the public about railroad infrastructure. Keep up the good work mark.

Amazing video please keep these 101 videos going! I love being able to recognize specific places your talking about and it's helpful to learn about other parts of the railroad as I'm a apprentice carman for bnsf

NJT has to put in a grade crossing on the Brooklyn Road section of the Lackawanna CutOff because the road was corrected in the 80s and 90s after ConRail tore up the line. I've seen that it's going to be a silent crossing with no horn. I'm hoping that I can talk to a few politicians I know about allowing the horn in the name of public safety. Horns are better than the ambulance squad showing up and having to deal with that mess.

New 101 video! I love all the 101 videos!

..... Gives a whole new meaning to Carol of the Bells.......

Quite a few of the examples used in the video are local to me, which is funny considering the channel name. Good stuff!

There was a time when I was at my grandpas house, I was about 4, there was an MOW tree trimming assembly. They were constantly going faster and slower, this made the crossing just have a ball, going up and down, up and down. And I was just confused about it until now, having listened to level 5.

the truck sign is a trucking warning to professional drivers that this crossing may cause low boy Trailers to become High Centered and stuck.

The IC back in the day had some crossings with air raid sirens as the sound mechanism.

Humans - they kill each other if they don't have an actual sign to tell them not to. "Mr. Geyer, did you know you just ran over ten people?" (Shrugs.) "I didn't see a sign." -- comedian Steve Geyer.

Where I'm from (Croatia) by law it's forbidden to have highway crossings on the same level, you can have it branch to a main road or a gas station, but highways are physically separated by a fence and elevation from other roads

Indian grade crossing are safe, as there is signal before every crossing which stays red until the gates are closed, they are manually closed by humans, check it out 😅

The 7 bell impression was golden

This guy has serious Doug Demuro train enthusiast vibes and I’m here for it 😂👍🏻

In Australia, at least in my home state of Victoria, I think the railways have their speeds reduced because of the unprotected (just the sign, no gates or lights) crossings. Be interesting to know if the track speed limit is influenced by this in the states too

As I was watching this I remembered a News story from back ~2003 where they were talking about the Bell failing at a crossing and a blind guy/motorist getting plowed by a freight train talking how the lights worked but not the bell. I think that crossing in Denver was an over reaction to that event.

This is related to your comment on how some municipalities use blue street signs. In National Parks, the signs that are normally green are all brown. Seven bells? Maybe one for every pedestrian that's been squashed there so far?

Lmao love the high speed train sign on rtd. Im a commuter engineer for them. If youre every on the g line look for the Warning High speed express trains pass through this station signs. I gigle when I see them because we go restricted speed when we express

I had a situation once, I am pretty sure it was an error and the gates etc went to failsafe and closed down. Here it usually is closed for a minute or two, maybe max 5-6 if there is a slow work train. It was closed for 15 minutes, no train. Ended up going to a underpass. To get to lunch. Welcome to Norwegian trains.

Oh no, you have to be patient and wait for the train. Feel free to take the risk, the gene pool will thank you. Here in the UK we have plenty of crossings controlled by the signaller which are interlocked with the signals - the crossing protection signal can't clear until the signaller confirms the crossing clear. They have CCTV to allow the signaller to see what is happening. This can result in long closures as the crossing has to close early enough that the train does not see a restrictive signal aspect.

You might want to watch Mark David McCowan and his channel. He is a retired Union Pacific Signal Maintainer on the Mojave and Fresno Divisions out of Bakersfield California. He started his RU-vid Channel before he retired. Mark goes into detail on different types of Signaling. Much of this is between Bakersfield and Mojave including the Tehachapi Loop.

Hyce! Passed my hostler exam at bnsf and I thank you so much for your info! It helped so much

You should look at the crossing in DeKalb, Illinois. Only place in the country where a state highway, national highway and railroad intersect at the same point